Once Melissa and I are on the rooftop, we unwrap our sandwiches and spend a few moments eating. The view over the mainly five- and six-storied buildings of Paris from up here would’ve been breathtaking if other high-rise office buildings did not obstruct it.

You can’t have everything, as they say.

Like this rooftop, for instance. It would’ve been a perfect lunch break terrace if it had a few chairs and tables, and a scattering of potted plants to offset its slate-gray functionality. But the powers that be don’t want that or don’t care.

Which suits me fine today because the rooftop’s stark barrenness ensures that I can have a tête-à-tête with Melissa.

“You wanted to have a chat,” she says, apprehension making her avoid eye contact.

With all the shit she’s endured over the last few months, the poor thing has learned to expect the worst.

I pull my cell phone from my bag. “Have a look.”

While Melissa watches the video of Bertrand swiping a document from her desk, I watch her face. At first, her expression is bleak, then her jaw slackens, and then her eyes narrow in anger.

She looks at me. “How did you come by this?”

“Recorded it myself,” I say not without pride.

She blinks.

I smile. “Remember the fake cactus I put on your shelf last week?”

“The one you said would bring me luck?”

“The very same.” My smile widens. “It’s a nanny cam.”

“What?”

“I’ve had it for a long time, and I must confess that once, long ago, I used it in a way I’m still ashamed of. But now I got a chance to use it for a good cause.”

And my residual inner bitch got a chance to redeem herself.

Hope flickers in her eyes but gives way to doubt. “Is it legal?”

“No.” I shrug. “But who cares? Which option do you think Bertrand would choose: sue me, after I send this vid to everyone in the firm, including clients, or stop the funny business and let you do your job?”

Melissa’s hands begin to shake. “I don’t have the guts to confront him. I’ll faint the moment I step into his office with that video.”

“I don’t expect you to confront him,” I say. “Recording him was my decision. It’s up to me to do the confronting.”

“You’re taking a huge risk.”

I shrug. “No big deal.”

“Noemi, listen to me.” She grabs my arm. “What you just offered means the world to me. It really does. But I refuse to let you ruin your career for me.”

I drop the phone back into my bag. “And I refuse to look the other way while that scumbag ruins your life.”

She lets go of my arm and begins to chew her nails.

“It’s simple,” I say. “Do you need this job or not?”

“Of course, I do!”

“I’ll make sure you keep it.”

We finish our sandwiches and take the elevator back to our floor.

As soon as Bertrand returns from lunch, I invite myself into his office and show him the video.

“Melissa and I have copies tucked away safely,” I say.

He gives me a black look. “What do you want?”

“Justice.”

Bertrand smirks. “As a lawyer, you should know that justice is a myth.”

“Can I use that in my signature? I’ll attribute the quote, of course.”

His eyes become slits. “Little bitch.”

Coming from him, the insult feels like a compliment. An acknowledgment that he’s dealing with a worthy adversary who is a force to be reckoned with.

I’m OK with being that sort of bitch.

“What do you want?” Bertrand asks again.

“You stop harassing Melissa immediately and irrevocably.”

“Is that all?” His gaze bores into my eyes. “How do I know you won’t come back next week asking for a promotion?”

“I won’t. But you’re right, you can’t know that.”

Blackmailing Bertrand for a promotion hadn’t even occurred to me. What did occur, many times, is to take on more cases as a public defender and apply for a job in a legal aid center. My salary would nose-dive, but I think I’d be happier.

In time, I might even start my own nonprofit. It would be called “Bitches for Social Justice.”

“OK,” Bertrand says. “I’ll leave Melissa in peace. But you’d better uphold your end of the deal.”

I nod and march out. As I pass Melissa, she looks like she’s about to faint with anxiety, so I grin and give her the V sign.

She slides down in her chair with relief.

When Bertrand leaves—and something tells me he won’t linger tonight—I know she’ll rush to my cubicle for details. There won’t be much to tell, but I’ll take pleasure in describing every sweet second of Bertrand’s inglorious retreat and capitulation.

I’ll squeeze the scene for more joy when I reenact it for Julien next week. He’ll be proud of me, and I’m sure he won’t mind that I used the same nanny cam from my birthday party eight years ago. He’s completely over that silly episode. I have it from the horse’s mouth.

What a bummer recounting my heroics to Julien will have to wait until he’s back from Belgrade!

He left this morning straight from my place—our place until we buy something together—and he won’t be back until next Tuesday.

As I ride the crowded métro home, I wonder what Julien will think of my short-term plan to find a new job and my long-term plan to start a nonprofit. Will he laugh at the fanciful name I’ve come up with?

And then there’s the motto: “Only a reformed bitch will fight for your rights tooth and nail!”

I’m grinning at my own cleverness as I step inside my apartment. But my smile fades even before my brain has fully registered all the little things that are wrong with it.

They all boil down to one big thing.

All of Julien’s stuff is gone.

His shoes and jackets no longer rub elbows with mine on the rack in the entryway. The laptop that he rarely uses has disappeared from the dining table that had become his desk. So have his books and papers. I dash into the bedroom and open the closet. No single suit, shirt, or underclothes of his is in sight. The bathroom has been cleared of his toiletries.

The only thing he’s left is the spare set of keys to my apartment. The one I gave him on our fifth date, with a tiny yellow water polo ball attached to the key ring. It sits on the entryway table atop a white envelope with my name on it.

With clammy hands, I open the envelope.

Noemi,

By the time you find this letter, you’ll know I’ve left you. But you won’t know why.

Remember the “joke” you played on me years back? I lied when I told you I’d gotten over it. Call me petty and vengeful, but after all this time, I still haven’t forgotten the pain of your betrayal and your gratuitous cruelty.

So yes, the dating and proposing was a sham. My end game had been to jilt you at the altar. But the loser that I still am couldn’t go through with it.

So, I’m breaking up with you now.

You won’t see it that way, but I’m doing you a kindness. By dumping you now, I’m sparing you public humiliation, which was the whole point of my revenge.

Please, feel free to sell the ring I gave you. Unlike my proposal, it’s real.

Julien

I reread the note four more times, hoping the letters and words in it will rearrange themselves into a different message because the current one is too hard to wrap my mind around.

Too brutal. Utterly incomprehensible.

Julien never loved me.

He sought revenge. He had carefully plotted his retaliation and served it to me nice and cold on a pretty platter. He had charmed me, seduced me, moved in with me.

He’d proposed, for Christ’s sake!

But the aim of his proposal was to make sure I would suffer maximum damage and pain once he dumped me. Like those assholes who build dirty bombs and blow them up in crowded places.

There are no words to describe how deeply he’d hurt me.

And over what?

A prank I played on him when we were eighteen.